Wealth has no permanence: it comes in the morning,and at night it is scattered to the winds.Physical beauty too has no importance,for a rosy face is made pale by the scratch of a single thorn.Noble birth also is of small account,for many become fools of money and horses. Reference: Mathnawi VI: 255-260 in Camille and Kabir Helminski“Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance”Threshold Books, 1996
Crescendos hum, the Nile snarls against new banks, the Hornbill’s beak opens skyward sinking in uliginous ground, brown coconuts refuse to crack open, the Atlantic will not carry blue ships. Vying toddler’s smile suddenly droops to his shoulders. A newly developed embryo wishes to degrow. Accra’s night air crystallises upon an inconsequential second. And the silence. The silence of The Book quietly observes these sighing eulogies. These magnificent sighing eulogies of a clamouring natural kind.
Ink was my saviour I drank it by the gallon. It poured into me then engulfing all the writing that others had defined me by pages and pages surrounding my liver unwritten by gushing blackness down my throat it went strangely willing me to write my story to tell my truth. At daybreak we witness. This night we must fathom. Under the belly of the sea a victor is born. K.Y. Djassi is a poet and writer based in the UK.
What will you say when the clouds break to show you a sun you’ve been seeking in yourself What will you say when the better time finally arrives cool, collected, a light seeping through white teeth What will you say when tired wrists will weigh heavy with the bracelets of Kisra when the life you used to mourn will become the coolness of your eyes when the secrets of the heart will dance- collide to make a heart well lived- a life well lived. K.Y. Djassi is a poet and writer based in the UK.
What will it do to swallow the night when the heart of a bird will carry you? Fluttering, leaning against the sky, drumming against your chest and reaching for a rope. Searching for an oasis like Hajar. These eyes are weary. But the water always flows. Hands calloused-breaking and breaking is a rough enterprise. All you have been through-I see you. Gazelle eyes, blinking under the shade of a Lote tree, the same wisdom you seek to fall upon you is within you. Next time hold back before you curse the dust, the future lies in the rubble – this is how God works. Silence ensues in the stillness of the amphitheater, the curtains part, this is your act. Spotlights blink on against a Saharan night. This time uproot the antennae coiling longer than your body, tissue skin is reaching to refract the light, words which knew their decree before you tumble from your mouth. All the while inside you, the heart is migrating skyward. Soukeyna Osei-Bonsu is a poet and writer based in London. She …
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